


save the polar bears

by emmaofmisthaven



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Bisexual Emma Swan Appreciation Fortnight, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-22
Updated: 2014-10-22
Packaged: 2018-02-22 05:36:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2496389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmaofmisthaven/pseuds/emmaofmisthaven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>environmental studies!Ruby dragging law student!Emma to a rally, only for her to be more interested in the cute blonde girl than the cause</p>
            </blockquote>





	save the polar bears

Things start, as they always seem to do, with Ruby.

And Emma loves her best friend slash roommate, she really does, but she also has an exam to study and a paper to write, so going to a rally about global warming is about the last thing on her mind at the moment. But of course Ruby gives her he most convincing pout, and of course Graham offers her his damn puppy eyes, and last thing she knows she’s in the street instead of at the library.

Trust is, she loves those rallies. She loves the crowd, its energy, its fury – loves the fast beating of her heart, the lightness of her head as she screams. And maybe it’s weird, this feeling surging through her veins, but she’s never been one to follow the rules anyway. There is something in challenging a higher power, something big and heavy – like she matters, somehow, like they all do.

(She’s supposed to be here for the penguins, damn it, not to get off on adrenaline.)

(Again.)

Graham is convincing her to at least wear a shirt this time, please, do it for me, when something hits the back of her head, startling them both as she whispers a small ‘outch’ and raises a hand to her wounded skull. She has half a mind to snap at the person careless enough to hurt her that way but, when she turns around, she only finds a teenager struggling with half a dozen picket signs. Her eyes are wide and she’s eating one of her braids, and Emma tries very hard not to laugh.

“You ok?”

“Yes! I mean, no… I mean, I’m _sorry_!”

Emma does laugh this time, the words tumbling out of the girl’s mouth in a jumble of sounds too hilarious for her to keep a straight face any longer. The signs are on the ground by now, and Emma moves closer to help the girl out with them, for she so obviously is out of her depth at the moment.

“No problem. It didn’t hurt any–”

The end of the word is swallowed by an “Oh my god, Anna, are you okay?” as a blonde woman swoop on them. The way her fingers immediately grazes the redhead’s cheek screams ‘sisters’ – the same tenderness in David’s eyes when Emma scraped her knee or woke him up in the middle of the night because of a heartbreak, that indefinable love and protectiveness. She has to look away after only a few seconds – she misses her brother, okay, living in different states and only calling each other once every two weeks, too busy to be good siblings.

“I’m fine,” the younger sister insists. “Look, I even got help from, hm…”

“Emma,” she replies as her head snatches back to the two other girls.

Which is something she shouldn’t have done for she feels dizzy all of a sudden – she blames it on the sudden move and nothing else, the way her heart misses a beat when she meet the other’s woman eyes is sheer coincidence. Really.

(And those are such lovely eyes, like a storm brewing over a clear sky, that Emma loses herself in them for half a second. Lovely lips, too. And hair. And face. And, gosh, what is she even _doing_.)

“Well, I’m Anna, and this is my sister…”

“Hey, Elsa!” Ruby appears out of thin air, wolfish grin on her lips as her eyes travels from one face to another – there’s a glint in them Emma knows all too well, the one that means troubles. “Oh, nice shirts!”

Indeed they are, and Emma fails to bite back another laugh at the matching slogans of ‘I just want to build a snowman’ and ‘No I won’t let it go’ – because how appropriate is that, really?

(But, more important, how is that Ruby knows that woman and never introduced them? Emma is pretty sure the brunette has introduced her to everyone and their cousin, so why exactly has she never heard of that Elsa before? She calls conspiracy theory. Or bullshit.)

“Oh, you two know each other?” she asks as she slips her hands in the back pockets of her jeans, proud in the evenness of her voice and how none too eager it sounds. Good job, Emma.

“Yes, we’re in the same major,” Elsa replies, tucking a loose strand of hair back behind her ear. Emma gets so caught in the moment, staring at the way her hair falls down her shoulder in a neat braid, shining silver in the sun, that she almost misses a joke of Ruby’s about saving wolves and polar bears. Or something along those lines.

Attraction at first sight is something Emma is familiar with (she is a college girl dragged to a lot of parties, after all), but never quite that way, never with such a pull. It confused her, and maybe scares her a little – she’s been burnt too many a time by the fires of passion – but there is something about Elsa… Lying under the surface, like ice covered by a thick layer of snow. She has that aura about her, the secretive girl who doesn’t try to be mysterious, and Emma feels drawn to her somehow, inexplicably.

Emma rarely lets herself feels that way – not anymore, at least. She’s all about one night stands, no string attached, tiptoeing her way out of some stranger’s dorm room in the early hours of the morning. She’s familiar with the walks of shame across the campus grounds, mascara smudge on her cheeks and hair having seen a better day. She likes the rush of it, no name and no phone number, the dance of bodies and the heat of the moment.

But Elsa… Elsa, she looks like the kind of girl you’d make breakfast in bed for and you’d introduce to you parents, the cuddles-and-lazy-Sundays-in-bed kind.

And it should scare Emma.

It just doesn’t.

And perhaps it is her undoing, because last thing she knows Graham forces her into a shirt and gives her a picket sign – she doesn’t even think about complaining. She just follows them when the crowd starts walking, just yells the words with them and basically does everything that is expected of her.

Elsa is always there, in the corner of her eye – red high on her porcelain cheeks and hair flying out of her braid as she grins to her sister. Her grey eyes shine with a joyful light, and Emma just can’t look away.

She’s so doomed.

So, really, it doesn’t come as a surprise when she agrees to have a drink with the others that evening. Well, to her at least. Ruby is less convinced, raising a eyebrow and asking about this exam she was so adamant to study – she’s pushing Emma’s buttons, of course, knows her friend all too well not to notice her little game, but the blonde only shrugs as she orders her drink.

“So, what’s _your_ major?” Elsa asks as she takes the seat next to her around their small table, carefully carrying her drink around. (She ordered a cocktail, blue and vibrant and sugary, and – urh, could she be any more adorable?)

“Law, actually,” she replies with a nod before taking a sip of her own drink. The alcohol burns her throat in the most pleasant ways, settling warmly in her stomach. “To get all your sorry asses out of jail when the government gets tired of you.”

That gets a laugh out of Elsa – Emma smiles, proud of herself.

She loves that laugh, open and carefree, so unlike Elsa’s otherwise quiet demeanour and poise. It’s there, just below the surface, waiting to bubble out and break free.

“So what was that thing about polar bears?” Emma asks as she toys with a beermat, chin resting in the palm of her other hand.

Elsa only needs that little push to throw herself into some long speech about global warming and the icecap, the effects on environment and on the animals. It’s a subject Emma is familiar with – she doesn’t let her friends drag her to those rallies just for the heck of it, despite what she likes to claim – but Elsa makes it seems so important somehow. Passionate people have that way about them, and you hang on to their every word without missing one beat.

Before Emma knows, one drink turns into two turns into three, until she’s the right side of buzzed. There’s a lightness to her brain as she explains that one night she and Ruby spent in a police jail because of a demonstration, making sure Elsa laughs at all the right moments.

(Gosh, she loves that sound.)

And maybe her fingers brush Elsa’s hand more than should be appropriate, and maybe they lean a little closer with each passing minute – if so, neither of them seem to mind all that much.

That is, until Ruby startles them both out of their conversation. She’s the wrong side of buzzed, quite obviously, and so Emma sighs because it can only mean it is time for them to go back to their dorm and sleep this one off.

She offers Elsa a sad smile, a silent apology, as she forces herself to stand up and leave. Easier said than done, maybe, when every cell in your body screams for you to stay, here, just where you are. And Emma, she may be bad at a lot of things – relationships and commitment, mostly – but she is good at trusting her guts.

Too bad she can’t listen to them, this time.

She’s the best of friends, seriously.

“I’ll see you around, then?”

And, really, Emma has no idea what gets into her at that moment – maybe she’s drunker than she thought, or maybe she feels particularly reckless all of a sudden – but last thing she knows she’s leaning down. Her lips brush Elsa’s, so softly it can barely be describe as a kiss.

Elsa’s eyes are wide – not the upset kind, a smile lingering at the corners of her mouth and a blush creeping up her cheeks – when Emma winks at her.

“Yeah. See you around.”

(The next rally is two weeks later. Emma doesn’t complain once when Ruby and Graham force her to attend.)


End file.
